Perhaps The Greatest Museum In The World

I recently had the privilege to be invited to the preview opening of the new Titanic Experience in Belfast. I had seen in previous visits, the massive scale of the building rising from the very shipyard where Titanic had been built 100 years ago and I tried to envisage what it might be like inside. When in May of last year I spoke at the Queens University commemorative lectures, I heard from one of the developers there about what they had planned. Nothing could have prepared me for the finished product. In the same way that the Olympic Class of ships (that included the building of Titanic) had stretched the bounds of ingenuity and scale, this museum goes beyond the ingenious and takes to the very forefront of technology and inventiveness. The photographic enhancement of old images throughout the facility brings the city of Belfast and the working of Harland and Wolff alive in a way that could only have been imagined in the past.

The creation of a mini Arrol gantry that dwarfed Olympic and Titanic during their construction gives a real sense of the dangerous job in which the shipbuilders were engaged. The motorised descent into a scaled hull of the Titanic at its earliest stages of construction gives a magnificent ‘fly on the wall’ experience of the riveters and ‘platers’ of a century ago and the inhospitable and dangerous tasks they undertook.  The simulated journey from the bowels of the ship amid the reciprocating engines up through the various classed sections of the ship is so real that you feel almost imbalanced in the ascent. I have been to all the major Titanic attractions around the world but I can safely say this is not just a Belfast attraction, it is not just an Irish one, I think this an attraction that will bring people from all over the world to our island of Ireland. In my discussions with international tour operators I pointed out that Cobh is less than four and a half hours away and that we too have a fantastic facility, another part of the story and another means of interpretation.

The new Titanic Experience in Cobh makes the very best use of the size of the building in which it is housed and the despite the grandeur and scale of the Titanic Belfast, nobody around the world is able to match the reality of the fact that the Cobh museum is the only one that can boast that real Titanic passengers stood in the very rooms that you visit.  Among the many, Lords Ladies, Mayors and Glitterati that were welcomed by the First Minister Peter Robinson that night, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, in his address acknowledged the presence of representative of Cobh and meeting him earlier on he told me he was really delighted that we had come to be there. Our own Mayor Jim Quinlan was a guest of Belfast’s Mayor that night. There is an air of optimism in Belfast that is as refreshing as a new page, the former drab, and grief stricken atmosphere of a city in conflict seems to have been shed and listening to the two Ministers it is clear that a new era has begun in Northern Ireland. Equally for us in Cobh what we have not got in scale we have in authenticity, in visual amenity, in heritage and beauty. 

The very people at the forefront of the developments in the North were here with me last week. I brought them on the Titanic Trail and into the Titanic Experience and despite their proximity to the magnificent Belfast Experience they were delighted enthralled and genuinely impressed with our product here. Those men and women on the opening night treated me like an old friend, an old friend that gave them an appreciation of an area and an historical legacy they had not been aware of. Long may it last?

When you have done the Titanic Trail in Cobh, when you have gone through the Titanic Experience here, when you have visited our museums, Spike Island and the new Titanic Trail Harbour tour, then go to Belfast, see their side of the story and be uplifted by what can be achieved if people work together. For more info on our local tours visit www.titanic.ie

If there is sufficient interest Jim Halligan will be offering a fortnightly overnight mini bus trip to Belfast and already a number of people have been asking.

Michael Martin